Wayfair raises $36 million to expand flash sales

Wayfair LLC has received in $36.3 million in equity financing to build on the rapid growth of its Joss & Main flash-sale site for home furnishings, the retailer said today.

The financing, which is the second round from a group of investors including Battery Ventures, Great Hill Partners, HarbourVest and Spark Capital, follows surging sales at Joss & Main, where the retailer says it hit record sales for a single day on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving. Wayfair didn’t report its total Joss & Main sales for Cyber Monday, but notes they were 50% higher than its prior highest sales day and that Joss & Main’s sales so far this year are up 10-fold from a year ago and on pace to hit $100 million this year. Wayfair’s total sales on Cyber Monday—including at Wayfair.com and AllModern.com—reached $6.4 million, up about 50% from just over $4 million on the same day last year, a spokeswoman says.

Joss & Main, which operates on the web at JossandMain.com, is a membership-based e-commerce site that offers what it describes as “inspirational décor at attainable prices.” Joss & Main has nearly 3 million registered members, Wayfair says. Wayfair, which changed its name from CSN Stores last year, is No. 50 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Earlier this year, Joss & Main launched a mobile app, which has helped to increase sales from mobile devices by 50% year over year so far during the 2012 holiday shopping season, Wayfair says.

“Mobile shopping represents more than one-third of sales every weekend, and reached nearly 40% on Cyber Monday,” says John Mulliken, co-founder and general manager of Joss & Main. “Mobile is growing four to five times as fast as the rest of our business, which is fast-growing itself.”

Michael Kumin, managing partner at Great Hill Partners, says Joss & Main’s mobile strategy is a good example of how well the retailer connects with consumers. “We are impressed by the traction that Joss & Main has secured over the past year in a category that is poised for tremendous growth,” he says. “The company has built a successful model and has demonstrated the ability to consistently innovate in a very traditional industry.”

“Our aim is to evoke a lifestyle magazine and encourage the delight of daily window shopping as well as the ease of temptation to buy every item from every store—if you act quickly enough,” he says. “This recipe is resonating very strongly with our members as evidenced by the pace at which new members are signing up every day.”

The $36.3 million in equity financing follows an initial financing round of $165 million from the same investors in June 2011, bringing the total so far to just over $200 million, a Wayfair spokeswoman says. Last year’s funding was for all of Wayfair’s operations.